


Love Lost Believers

by giraffles



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, CoS AU, Fluff and Angst, M/M, feelings are hard, it's been a decade since i wrote these two losers I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 04:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9303947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giraffles/pseuds/giraffles
Summary: Dismantling a semi-permanent gateway, one forged with so many forgotten souls, is no simple matter. It’s a task made a little harder by the fact that heknowsit means trapping two brothers with no way home. But it’s what’s been asked of him, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t finish the job. He owes them that much.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is for Cowania on tumblr! I hope you enjoy it friend! \o/ (and if not let me know and I can write you something else!)

Dismantling a semi-permanent gateway, one forged with so many forgotten souls, is no simple matter. It’s a task made a little harder by the fact that he _knows_ it means trapping two brothers with no way home. But it’s what’s been asked of him, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t finish the job. He owes them that much.

After the last light of the transmutation has faded, leaving him darker and more bitter than he has any right to be, he finds every exit he can and seals them tight. He considers razing the whole of the sunken city, but there’s no telling what that would do to the already battered one above it. It’s safer to let it lie, a filthy secret to fester, because they’ve had enough death and destruction that day. And so closes the door, both literally and metaphorically, on the story of the Elrics in Amestris. He wishes the best for them, wherever they end up.

 

* * *

 

 

Roy is mildly pleased to see that he hasn’t burned all his bridges in Central. Especially in the wake of an extra-dimensional attack that has left the bulk of the government in chaos. In the following weeks, months, he gets his fair share of odd looks and not-so-hidden glares; yet there are just as many who are grateful to have someone with experience around. In reality he can’t offer much, but he does what he can. Somehow he ends up with his old team too, even though he never requested their reassignments, and Hawkeye stays mum on the subject. Roy isn’t an idiot. Stubborn, self-sabotaging, and now a little cynical, maybe, but he’s not stupid. None of them have any obligation to him. They’re here all the same.

It takes nearly three years for things to settle into a semblance of normalcy. Their country is a slow-moving machine, made slower still by the push and pull of the old guard versus the new. Oh, they have their parliament, a shot at democracy over military might— but old habits die hard. As do those who were very comfortable in the status quo before Bradley’s regime fell. But if they started getting rid of anyone who had ever gotten their hands dirty, there wouldn’t be a single person left at the helm. So even though trying to pass reforms could be like sticking a square peg in a round hole, they carry on. It’s a grueling give and take. It’s unavoidable.

And, of course, just when seem to be moving smoothly, a new emergency throws a proverbial wrench in the whole thing.

Concurrent earthquakes once again. Smaller this time, a gentle if startling rocking compared to the disaster that once encompassed two cities. There are more of them, scattered throughout the eastern province, but all circling one point in particular. And because the east was under his eye for so long, they naturally decide to send him for a looksee. Roy loathes to be anywhere near that stifling, sandy hellscape ever again, but orders are orders. He also doesn’t have a good reason not to follow them, and there’s no getting out of it once Major Armstrong and a team of trained officers are presented for the mission.

The whole situation comes with an unsettling amount of deja vu. The circumstances may be different, and he’s surely not the same man, but it’s the _sameness_ that puts him on edge. It calls back old worries and instills fresh anxieties. The gate is closed on this side. There’s no one here to open it. Not on purpose, at least. Then, is someone new trying to punch their way through? Or someone old? Or, will they instead find something at the end of the long and grueling ride to the epicenter?

There’s no sense in worrying over things he can’t control. He worries anyway.

 

* * *

 

It’s in an eastern slum town that they make the discovery of a lifetime. The locals are less than warm about a military inquiry, but they still manage to glean some important facts from the populace. One, the earthquakes have been hell on their ramshackle dwellings. Two, an alarming amount of people are still falling through cracks, even with all the State’s efforts to provide for at-risk groups. Three, there are whispers of a pair of alchemists hanging out by the war-battered ruins. There are a lot of things that could mean. He shoves the least likely (but most hopeful) one down deep where it can’t reach his waking life.

A lightning strike is a coincidence. A random act of nature, blinding in its chaos and unpredictability. It doesn’t happen in the same spot twice.

Besides, it’s hard enough to focus on the task at hand while being in a place filled with so many ghosts. He doesn’t have the time to dwell on fantastical whims and improbabilities. The culprits of the latest disturbance are inherently dangerous, and now that he has his stars and bars back, he has the well being of too many men on his hands. They may be trained and tested, but Roy is the one with the final say. He gets to tell them what to do and where to go, and at the end of the day it’s his fault if they’re dead. There will be no more casualties on his watch.

It’s in the evening that they move on the ruins with the setting sun at their backs. He’ll press whatever advantage available to them; searing sunlight, the descent from the high ground, even himself in the very front. His depth perception is permanently altered, but he’s learned to pick up the slack, and maybe his reputation precedes him. He’s also learned to have those he trusts take his blind side.

He lets Armstrong use his alchemy from a distance to take down the already crumbling wall. The startled cries that rise from the dust and ripples of the transmutation are enough to tell him that the intel was on point. There were people skulking about the ruins, though that begged the question of _who_. But it’s his words and heart that still with shock when he actually gets a good look at them.

      “Woah, woah, _woah!_ ” The bright voice rings out, unmistakable but so foreign, “Holy shit, hold on a second!”

      “Oh.” Is the only intelligent thing Roy can utter.

The elite officers with their weapons drawn and raised shift nervously, and are downright bewildered when the major bursts into tears and storms the suspects. Roy tells them to put away their guns while Armstrong crushes the life out of two boys he never thought he’d see again.

 

* * *

 

‘Boys’ is entirely the wrong term. He realizes this soon after taking them into protective custody; Alphonse may still be baby-faced, but he’s gotten tall in the years he’s been gone, though Edward hasn’t done the same, instead becoming all lines and angles. And apparently honing his biting tongue while he was busy growing up. The pair of them are simultaneously dashing sparks of light and muted, somber beings. They pointedly avoid talking about the other world, saying just the barest minimum to get them off the hook. Of course that makes him want to ask, _was it really that bad?_ , and it’s also how he knows not to press the matter. Don’t they deserve a few secrets of their own, after all they’ve been through?

      “Why d’ya keep looking at me like that?” Ed’s words are a lance, breaking any lines of rational thought he’s managed to pull together, “It’s weirding me out.”

      “In my defense, the last time I saw you, you dove into a portal with a warship and disappeared from this plane of existence. And not for the first time, I’ve been told.”

He blinks back at Roy and after a pause, “I guess that’s fair.”

Ed lounges on the couch in the office, like some sort of stray cat that’s wandered in and decided that they own the place. His clothes are odd, something about them is just this side of strange enough to make one wonder, and so drab in comparison to his usual style. Edward was always loud and vibrant in every way that it somehow seems wrong for him to be done up in browns and neutral tones. His eyes, however, are still molten gold and filled with a fire not even the world with all its horrors can dim. Even if there’s a burden hidden in that lopsided smile of his.

Roy is very quickly realizing that he’s gotten in far too deep.

      “Can we leave yet?”

      “No,” as much as he would like to turn the brothers loose, there are protocols to follow and reports to file, “Technically, you’re still apart of the military.”

Ed gives him this _look_. “What is that supposed to mean?”

      “It means,” he starts, trying to keep the tone as light as possible, lest he have a human-shaped hurricane on his hands, “That you’re stuck here until they decide how to classify your extended absence. If it were anyone else, you would already be on the receiving end of a court martial.”

And his brother, a civilian who has gotten so close to classified events, would have been thrown in a jail cell. _If_ he was lucky. They were beyond lucky. Funny though, how luck and tragedy seemed to follow them in equal measure. For every trial they’d braved they always seemed to come out on the other side in one piece. More or less, anyway. Then again, it could be argued that nothing was without its price, and if that price was fair or not was always up for debate.

Ed huffs dramatically and kicks his feet up on the table.

      “Hold up, doesn’t that mean I’m still on the payroll?”

Well, he’ll be damned. “I suppose it does.”

      “ _Score_.”

      “Don’t spend it all in one place,” if Roy closes his one good eye, he can pretend it’s almost like the old days, “As much as the steakhouses of Central will appreciate your patronage.”

That’s assuming that they’ll honor three years and a few odd months of back pay, though naturally he’ll press them to anyhow. Though he’s sure the state will want to keep Ed there, keep him reined in on a short leash, his personal advice would be to get out and never look back. Amestris is at peace at the moment, yes, but they’ve made enemies in their long history of imperialism. Bitter enemies whose memory runs deep and long. The idea of them taking him, their shining alchemist of the people, and installing him in the machine of war is sickening. It doesn’t matter that it was Ed who signed up for this, or that really it was _Roy_ who set him on this path in the first place; what matters is that he doesn’t get wrapped up in another disaster.

There’s also a level to all of this that doesn’t feel quite real. As though he’s going to wake up and it will be Tuesday again, just another morning of business of usual— and that he’s certainly not staying late at the office to make sure two mirages don’t run off again. Or more like making sure _Ed_ doesn’t sneak out, because Alphonse was always much more responsible, which is why he was the one allowed to use the phone down the hall. To call Winry, to let her know of the miraculous news, and to maybe ask her to come to Central. Ed’s automail has seen better days, even though he can’t see much of it beyond the long sleeves of his shirt.

Long moments of silence pass between them as he attempts to focus on the paperwork that's piled up. Reports and treaties seem almost trivial things in the face of the last few days. Yet life marches on, impossible miracles or not.

 

* * *

 

 

It's not clear when things changed, when perceptions shifted from one side to another. What is clear is that he's fallen too deep in the hole when he realizes it. By that point, it's too late to really do anything about it, save for suffering quietly while a blonde spitfire reinserts himself into his life. And of course Ed does nothing halfway, always at full throttle and a little heedless of who is in his path. It’s a little concerning. Or is it charming? Things have been slipping into that gray area, uncharted territory that he’s determined not to step foot in if he can help it. It’s a situation bordering on inappropriate at best, and downright insane at worst, and it’s better if he just doesn’t think about it. Roy has gotten good at ignoring his problems.

One night when he comes home, the lights are already on. Which is wrong because he’s not one to leave them lit during the day, or even to forget to turn them out. The front door is definitely unlocked. Hawkeye is the only one with a spare key, and it was unlikely to be her, especially when she was halfway across the city in someone else’s apartment for the weekend. There are plenty of people who might want to break into a generals house, to rob or attack him, but far fewer who would be so brazen about their presence. Roy has a feeling he knows exactly who it is. He sighs, hangs up his coat, and goes straight to the living room.

      “Edward,” He begins by addressing the pile of books and blankets on the couch, “What are you doing here?”

A splash of gold peaks over the edge of a quilt. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

      “Trespassing, mostly. Breaking and entering. Theft of property. Should I go on?”

      “It’s not really theft if I haven’t left the premises,” Ed turns a page in the book he must have pilfered from the library, “Besides, you said I could borrow these.”

      “I did,” The conversation had indeed taken place earlier that week, “However, I meant I would bring them _to_ you, not for you to pick my lock.”

He’s not angry, per se, because Ed has always been a bringer of headaches. Along with many other bundles of complicated, unresolved feelings that he certainly wasn’t going to deal with at the moment. It could wait until _after_ he had removed the elder Elric from his house. Or maybe never.

As if by some psychic providence, Ed burrows himself deeper into the couch with a collection of rare tomes, and says, “I’m not leaving.”

      “You’re being ridiculous. Won’t Alphonse worry?”

      “He knows where I am,” He can’t possibly be reading as fast as he flicks the pages by, of that at least Roy is sure, “Give it up, I’m staying.”

      “For how long?”

That puts a certain tension in the air. Ed puts the book down.

      “If hate me that much you could have said something.” He mutters as he untangles himself from the blankets, displacing reading materials and setting off alarm bells in Roy's head. Ed is halfway to the door before his hands catch up with the trainwreck that's become his thought process.

      “I didn't _say that—_ ”

      “You didn't need to,” Comes the voice muffled by a coat, “It's what you _don't_   fuckin’ say that's the worst.”

      “What do you want me to say?” At this point he's out of answers, out of smooth talk and banter, “I am, in fact, not a mind reader.”

And he's tired. Tired of playing a game that he doesn't know what the goal is supposed to be anymore, where the sign posts have been painted over and he's hopelessly lost in amber and gunmetal skies. He's lost too many of his recent bets to be placing any on a known loose cannon, ready to misfire at a single stray touch. Ed doesn't pout at him but he certainly comes close.

      “I don't know,” he shrugs awkwardly, idly playing with his coat buttons, which is still red and loud and unmistakably _Edward_ , “You're supposed to be the expert here.”

There are a lot of things he can say, many he won't, and some he can't. Trying to only gathers shards of glass in his throat and allows foul things to well up, words that could cut and scathe in irredeemable ways. Maybe it would be better that way. Break any feeble chains that may still lay between them. Allow Ed to have the world, not just the narrow path that lies with him, and the sorry excuse for a life that awaited here. He settles for a barely there brush of fingers instead.

Ed leans into his hand, and he can’t bring himself to draw away even against all sane and sound judgment. Maybe, if he was a better man, this wouldn’t have been so hard. No one ever said he was a good man.

Roy says as much aloud, and gets a growling Ed for his trouble, spitting back, “Maybe I just want _you_. Did you ever think of that?”

The thought might have occurred to him, on more than one occasion, but it’s also such an uncertain thing to believe in. And no one can blame him if the years have turned him into a hardened cynic.

      “I’m not an entirely wise choice.” Though at this point, the argument is weak and faltering.

      “Since when have I cared about that?”

      “That’s true,” What also isn’t fair is how _warm_ he is, who on earth allowed that, “Only if you’re sure.”

      “You’re an ass,” Ed gives him a halfhearted shove, “But I already knew that.”

It’s worth it in the end for the half of a smile that graces his features, and maybe, even if it’s only a little, there’s still room in this life for hope.


End file.
